A Day Off?

With a break on Wednesday, I was planning on finishing the assigned reading. I was still riding the energy high of participating in the course and learning new things. At the close of class on Tuesday, Jennifer informed us that as part of our exam, she would be calling each of us (pretending to be a client) in the middle of the night to see how lucid we could be. She hinted that there would be questions asked based on the material we had learned that evening.
This did not make for the deepest sleep I've ever had.
The call did not come Tuesday night, however, and on Wednesday night I went to band practice. Thinking nothing of it, I had a few beers with my band mates. When I got home, quite late, I uncharacteristically checked my email. I can only thank my lucky starts that I did, for an unexpected assignment lay in wait for me! Tracy assigned each of us a "client" who had certain factors weighing on her pregnancy that we would be expected to research and present to the class tonight. I tell you, after caring for my three kids all day and then giving my all at practice, staying up late to do research wasn't what my body wanted to do! Resisting the siren call of my big fluffy pillow, (knowing my kids would never give me the chance the next day) I spent an hour reading and absorbing all the different causes and treatments for pre-eclampsia. There are so many contradictory findings to be pored over and dissected. I found that midwives, and doulas, had excellent methods for bringing down blood pressure, some as innovative as simply removing one's bra! (As a large -busted woman I thought this was ingenious.) The simple theory behind this act being that when the upper body relaxes, so follows the rest of the body, with blood pressure following suit. There are many other, much more obvious remedies, but that particular one struck a chord with me and happened to be my favorite, which is why I share it here now. Finally, exhausted, I was able to crawl into my bed and succumb to beautiful sleep. I was just entering that place between consciousness and dreamland when I remembered: THE PHONE! This could be the night of my call from Jennifer! Feeling absolutely UN- lucid after my two beers, I scrambled around trying to find my cell, which of course, was about to die. I spent five minutes locating my charger and had no sooner plugged it in when my baby woke up.
Frustrated, swaying in the dark with my wee'un over my heart, I couldn't help but lament that if I hadn't had the two beers, I probably would have had a much easier time of all this. I woke several times in the night, convinced I was hearing Jennifer's call. It's day two, and I'm already realizing that a lifestyle change will be part of accepting this role I've chosen to take. You know what else I've realized? That it's totally worth it.